I was up and out before 8am this morning for a run on the Braes. I set out to run well within myself concentrating on how my breathing felt rather than the watch. Infact I decided not to look at the watch at all which I did except to press the lap button at certain points so I could have a look at things when I got home!

May is going to be a key month in my build up to the whw race and so I’ve decided that all my long runs are going to be easy runs, with my breathing being the key factor. I’ll walk the hills, use the downhills to strengthen my quads and aim to finish every long run feeling as though I’ve just done a warm up with loads left in the tank.

Just to prove how easy I was running today when I came across Joe Sheridan and his friend out walking their dog, instead of running past I stopped and walked with them for a while, chatting about last Saturday. How relaxed is that!

Thomas pointed out that my splits still weren’t right (for the leg positions at Beinglas) so I’ve redone them again! plus Lesley H was missed out of the orginal list so she’s been added in as well. I’m hoping they are right now!

It’s good to see I’m not the only one who likes analyising the results. Tim D has sorted them out by percentage. Alec E sent me his very complicated spreadsheet which calculated when people arrived at each checkpoint in real time. I must ask him whether I can post it for others to see?

Anyway on to my review of April …

The Numbers ….I ran 20 times in April with 11 rest days (I know there aren’t 31 days in April – I ran twice on one day!) for a total of 211.50miles.

I’ve also been keeping an eye on the types of runs I’m doing each month so here is the breakdown for Jan – Apr …

The Feeling ….I was really happy with my training in April. I didn’t miss a single planned training run and it was so good to be running without pain in my chest after my fall in March.

There was a good variety of easy runs, tempo, fartlek and long runs. I didn’t do any runs over 20miles (except for the Fling).

The Race ….April was dominated by the Fling and I’m still thinking through what I learnt from it. Basically I feel I started racing (against the clock) far too early and wasn’t strong enough to be able to keep it going. If I could do it again I would definitely start easier and see how I felt.

I also suffered as William Sichel pointed out by only having one (unrealistic as it turned out) goal for the day.

I suppose it’s good to be reminded at this stage with the big one still to come. It’s going to be upper most in my mind over the next couple of months and as I run the race. I feel I need to get back to running these ultras how I have been doing over the past two years – a steady ‘running within myself’ start and aim to keep it going.

I don’t have long to wait until the next one – less than two weeks before the Cateran Trail.

So a good solid month of training with a race which gives me plenty to think about.